Windows: The Dread of Updates
shamusyoung.com
shamusyoung.com
I bought a new computer. I bought the Flight Simulator 2020. The flight simulator wouldn't work. MS Support said to update Windows, which I did. FS2020 worked... for a week. Then MS Support said to update Windows to 2004. The whole update took about 6 hours, time I would like to have spent flying.
Of the 3 weeks I had FS2020, a FULL DAY was spent on the phone with MS Support, with the ONLY change being a new, updated Windows. 24 hours of "support" spread over 3 weeks. 3 work days I could have flown.
FS202 is an amazing program. But it won't run if (a) the remote license check fails (b) the operating system isn't up to date, (c) the wifi is down, or (d) FS updates aren't applied.
Would you keep a great car if (a) it wouldn't start if the owner's manual wasn't up to date? or (b) it wouldn't start because your lease isn't up to date? or (c) the onboard computers weren't the latest update? or (d) the wifi was down? I'd get rid of the car, no matter how good it was.
I got rid of FS2020. I now have a sweet Linux install.
If you value your time, your work, or your money... Don't use Windows.
For example, take the FS2020 downloader. Instead of using the game-store downloader, with its highly optimised CDN and streaming package format, they wrote their own downloader.
Okay, fine. Let's accept for a moment that perhaps Steam, or XBox, or whatever couldn't handle the enormous size of their game, despite being roughly the same size as COD5 or Doom Eternal and that the FS2020 team needed the game to load faster to "deliver a good experience".
So the FS2020 team clearly spent effort to write "something better". That something better was atrociously bad. So bad that the game immediately earned the nickname "download simulator", because that was the experience most users had of the game for the first 24-49 hours or so.
It took 5 hours to download on gigabit fibre internet. It should have taken 30 minutes!
The FS2020 downloader makes every mistake possible to make in a downloader. It's synchronous. It downloads tiny files. It doesn't use a local CDN. It decompresses files after downloading them in a single thread, without downloading anything during this time. It downloads the base game and then the patch separately, instead of the pre-patched version. It doesn't recover from interruptions properly.
I could go on and on.
Someone in the development team of this AAA game decided that they know better than the people that operate the Xbox content distribution network.
It's arrogance born of ignorance.
To think Microsoft had any real planning on this product is wishful thinking.
For instance I find it absurd that to use a VR headset - effectively no more than a gaming peripheral, along the lines of a TrackIR but fancier - I need to buy in to several software "markets", create several accounts, submit to installing invasive spyware on my machine, and endure regular multi-gigabyte forced updates that don't improve the experience at all. It's completely out of proportion.
Nope. Microsoft in all its arrogance decides that no user can be trusted to make proper decisions about their own hardware. It set a wake timer, booted up my PC in the middle of the night and rebooted it (killing all my processes, wiping out my work) to install its update. It's unforgiveable. There's no way to turn just the forced reboot feature off permanently. The only thing you can do is suspend updates for a bit, temporarily.
I own my hardware, I want to own my software. I'm sick of this "OS as a service" turn Windows 10 has taken.
I used to exclusively use Linux desktops but got back into games.
However, this combined with the deceptive Microsoft account bullshit when installing makes me think I should make the switch back again.
Setting this, I have never had an unexpected restart. Please keep in mind that future Windows updates may adjust this setting. I have had to re-apply the policy at least once.
I’ve also had issues with wake timers which have needed a combination of settings to fix.
Personally, I have moved away from Windows for every device I have excluding a dedicated gaming PC. I agree that this is hostile behavior and is completely unacceptable.
[0] The group policy is located at
Computer Configuration\ Policies\ Administrative Templates\ Windows Components\ Windows UpdateThis is a big problem. Changing settings or even re-installing junk that you worked hard to remove.
An even bigger problem is that microsoft can just simply disable this setting whenever they want in the future.
Although if you just want to control updates wumgr [1] still works, check it out. I use windows laptop pretty rarely, like a few times per year maybe and it helps a lot.
If you mostly play singleplayer games, WINE/lutris/Proton have all gotten pretty good. If you play games with anti-cheat, there's no escaping Windows though.
You may have luck with a GPU passthrough actually, if you've got the hardware.
Is it possible from Microsoft's side to have good operating system updates within Windows' existing constraints, considering the hardware diversity? (And on the flip side, why has Apple had so much trouble recently with avoiding updates that break features, despite controlling the hardware?)
I get that it's challenging, that's clear, but why are updates in these proprietary OSs so apparently unsolvable?
And then Microsoft elected to save a lot of money by firing the entire QA team.
You are their QA team now, so don't be surprised if you find bugs. It's your job.
[1] https://www.ghacks.net/2019/09/23/former-microsoft-employee-...
Have you tried delaying feature updates? The "higher" your edition, the longer you get to delay them. I got Windows 10 Professional, and the first thing I did was set those updates to be delayed for a year (I figure by then their involuntarily crowdsourced QA will resulted in a relatively stable build). I haven't had any serious problems yet.
Don't get me wrong, though, I hate what Microsoft is doing to Windows and I think this is all stupid and sad.
You seem like the perfect target for a Linux based laptop.
Buy an SSD and install Ubuntu on your current laptop to see if it has any problems?
Otherwise I bought an XPS (despite my long term hatred of Dell hardware) and they have good Linux support.
Installing Windows in a VM is way easier, and you can control updates better in some fairly dirty ways (snapshots, firewall etc).
I remember, I said huge No to Windows 10 when I realized I can't change Administrator password offline, as I created MS account during setup. Big mistake of mine.
Also, business editions receive updated until 2023
Literally every time she goes to use the laptop there’s an update...takes over an hour to get things started. Eventually she got tired of the updates and now back on the phone scrolling.
I too would like my desktop restored to its last setting on reboot.